End of the Mission Trail
Sonoma, Sonoma County, California
Marker Inscription
The End of the Mission Trail 1523-1823 The Mission Trail marked three hundred years of Spanish-Mexican settlement. It travelled as far south as Guatemala and traversed Mexico to advance through eleven of our present day united states. In 1823 Mission San Francisco Solano was founded, marking the last an northernmost outpost on the historic Mission Trail.
The Story
For three centuries, Spain and then Mexico pushed a chain of settlements and missions northward from Central America into what is now the American West. The last and northernmost link was Mission San Francisco Solano, founded at Sonoma in 1823. This marker frames that long corridor of colonization, the Mission Trail, and its terminus on the California frontier.
Why it matters
It captures the vast reach of Spanish-Mexican settlement that shaped the Southwest and California before they became part of the United States.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mission San Francisco Solano
Sonoma, CA · est. 1963
Founded in 1823 by Padre José Altimira, Mission San Francisco Solano was the northernmost of California's Franciscan missions and the only one established under newly independent Mexico. When Mexico secularized the missions, commandant Mariano Vallejo carried out the order here in 1834, and the site became the parish church of Sonoma. It served the pueblo until it was sold in 1881.
California Native Americans
San Francisco, CA
Added in 1996 to San Francisco's 1894 Pioneer Monument, this plaque reframes the monument's celebration of California's settlement by acknowledging its devastating cost to Native peoples. It records that at least 300,000 Native people lived in California before European settlement began in 1769, a population reduced to roughly 15,000 by 1900 through disease, malnutrition, and violence — a catastrophe that accelerated after the 1848 Gold Rush — before rebounding across the 20th century. It stands as a rare public reckoning attached to an older triumphalist memorial.
Portola Discovery Site of San Francisco Bay
Pacifica, CA
On November 4, 1769, a Spanish overland expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá, searching for Monterey Bay, instead climbed these coastal hills and became the first Europeans to sight the vast San Francisco Bay. The 'discovery' of one of the world's great natural harbors — long known to the Ohlone people who lived along its shores — reshaped Spain's plans for Alta California and led within a few years to the founding of the San Francisco presidio and mission.
Juana Briones Park
Palo Alto, CA
This ground was once part of Rancho La Purísima Concepción, a Mexican land grant issued in 1846 to José Gorgonio, a former Santa Clara Mission Indian. The rancho soon passed to Juana Briones de Miranda, a remarkable Californiana who ran cattle, healed the sick, and became one of the region's few independent landowning women. The park now bears her name.